Posted
by
Soulskillon Wednesday January 16, 2013 @09:10AM
from the i'm-sure-nobody-at-all-will-complain-about-this-ever dept.

New submitter mallyn points out that the state of New York has become the first state to pass a new gun control law since the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary last month.
"Called the New York Safe Act, the law includes a tougher assault weapons ban that broadens the definition of what constitutes an assault weapon, and limits the capacity of magazines to seven bullets, down from 10. The law also requires background checks of ammunition and gun buyers, even in private sales, imposes tougher penalties for illegal gun use, a one-state check on all firearms purchases, and programs to cut gun violence in high-crime neighborhoods. ... New York's law also aims to keep guns out of the hands of those will mental illness. The law gives judges the power to require those who pose a threat to themselves or others get outpatient care. The law also requires that when a mental health professional determines a gun owner is likely to do harm, the risk must be reported and the gun removed by law enforcement."
Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is expected to propose a new federal assault weapons ban later today.

You've convinced me! We should probably take laws against murder, and assault, and theft off the books, because criminals will break the law. We should strike every law that could potentially be broken. What's the point of having laws at all. Just have everyone shoot it out with each other. Isn't that the NRA's dream?

One slight flaw: assault weapons are designed for one purpose - to kill lots of other people quickly. For cars that's only a secondary effect, their primary purpose is transportation. Clothing and luggage are rarely fatal.

Does it really matter what something was designed to do if it's almost never used for that purpose?

I mean, yes, a grenade was designed to explode and kill/injure people nearby. It *can* be used as a baseball, but that's just foolish and stupid and it's never actually used for that.

The vast, overwhelming majority all "assault weapons" like the AR-15 are used for perfectly legitimate purposes, like recreational, sport, and competitive shooting (they're exceedingly common at high-end competitions like the National Matches). Their popularity in hunting is increasing as hunters realize that having a lightweight, durable, rugged, and reliable gun that fires the same ammo as "traditional-looking hunting rifles" can be useful.

They're almost never used in crime: FBI crime stats show that rifles of any kind (including "assault weapons") are used in about 3.7% of all firearm-related homicides and that number has been decreasing year over year for decades.

An AR-15 is not an assault weapon. It is single fire, in the same way that a hunting rifle is, and the same way that a handgun/revolver is. One bullet per trigger pull. It was already illegal to own an assault rifle. That is until they change the definition. Sort of how anyone is a potential terrorist.

Well, not entirely illegal to own an assault rifle. However, if you want a automatic M16 there are significantly more hoops to jump through than for a semi-auto AR15.

Find one which was registered with the ATF prior to 1986 and is for sale.

Pay around $15-20 THOUSAND for it (artificial scarcity due to regulations).

Fill out a Form 4 to transfer it to yourself. Visit a local LEO for a certification there's nothing to prevent you from owning it. Get fingerprinted. Set the above with a check for $200 to the ATF. Some of this step can be short circuited by buying it as part of a trust or corporation.

Wait months for the Form 4 to be approved and returned to you.

Pick up your assault rifle.

Additionally, some states have their own prohibitions on actual assault rifles.

Ultimately, and it's borne out by a National Academy of Sciences survey of available research, there's no conclusive data supporting an AWB (or any gun control, for that matter) as reducing crime. It's supposition. As stated by the Supreme Court in Heller, the 2nd Amendment does protect an individual right and I'm very hesitant to support restriction of an individual right based on such guesswork. We don't support prior restraint of Free Speech, even though it has motivated mass killings, yet we do here. I'm also very hesitant to support such restriction on everyone because some may misuse that right. In the case of the 2nd, it's pretty clear it was intended to protect the individual's right to own and use the state of the art infantry small arms of the day. It's equally clear the other rights protected by the Bill of Rights aren't restricted to the technologies available at the time it was enacted. So why the 2nd? IMO because, in the wake of tragedies such as Newtown, it's easier to focus on the tools than the why.

Given the speed of beauracracy, I'm absolutely sure this is a well thought out piece of legislation, which balances freedom with security. Fortunately, mental health professionals are the appropriate people in our judicial system to deny personal liberties, and that stigmatizing gun owners will help bring together a society that is being split on ideological lines.

So will mental health professionals be required to do a check against gun owner databases? Will a mental illness database need to be created so that potential gun buyers can be screened at purchase time? How about house-holding - if someone in the same residence is a registered gun owner, will they be forced to surrender their weapons?

To prevent, among other things, unauthorized and unlicensed use of guns, section 47 of the bill adds a new Penal Law 265.45 establishing safe storage requirements for rifles, shotguns and firearms. Under this new section, a gun owner who lives with someone who the owner has reason to know is prohibited from possessing a gun because the prohibited person has been convicted of a crime punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding one year, has been adjudicated mentally defective or committed to a mental institution, is subject to a court order of protection or has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence whose sentence has been completed in the last five years must, when the gun is out of the owner's immediate control, keep the gun secured in a safe storage depository (for example, a safe or similar secure container with a lock that can be opened only with a key or combination, or other locking mechanism) or render it incapable of being fired by putting a safety lock on the gun.

So, let me start this out by saying that I'm a damn sight from being a Republican, much less a gun nut. And yes, there are gun nuts - we all know the type.

Having said that, I love how NY (and for that matter, everywhere else) doesn't give a hoot in hell whether or not any actual evidence backs them up when laws like this get passed, much less track the results of what they have passed. It's a platitude, but true: criminals and other assholes could give a toss less whether or not they are breaking gun laws when they shoot someone. Regular folks are the ones who care about the law and mostly try to follow it, out of fear if nothing else.

And yes, the second amendment doesn't mean a turkey in every pot and a Bofors anti-aircraft gun in every garage, but god damn - every time the government tries to take away something that anyone used to have I need to ask myself, "Do I trust the government?", the answer to which is almost always NO. I'd rather have a hillbilly with a M-16 and the stars and bars hanging in a window living next to me than have The Man start confiscating guns "for our own good", that's for sure.

The article that scarboni888 linked to says that there were 11 mass shootings in Australia before the Port Arthur massacre (1996).
Not being an Austrialian myself, I thought I'd look it up in the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia [wikipedia.org] ... It certainly seems that there were a few a mass shootings *before* the Port Arthur massacre.

Welcome to Orwellian Slashdot: Where misinformation is rated "+5 Informative"!

The law does contain a lot of really beneficial improvements that may well improve things, but the "one-feature" test for so-called "assault weapons" will apply to a rather large number of common sporting and competition guns, requires that they be registered within the year, and once registered these now-banned guns cannot be sold or transferred to another New Yorker -- they can only be transferred to a licensed gun dealer or to an out of state buyer -- even if the registered owner dies.

Not even legally-transferrable machine guns, what few there are, are so strictly regulated.

De-grandfathering pre-ban magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds is asinine (are people supposed to turn them in?), as is banning any newly-produced magazines with a capacity greater than 7 rounds. (You can keep your current 10-round magazines but you can't load more than 7 rounds into them.)

They could have kept such absurd provisions out of the law and people probably would think that it's a reasonable, if somewhat restrictive, law that may do some good stuff...but those extra provisions go way too far.

The 'one feature' or 'two feature' generally does nothing to alter the functionality of the weapon. It is purely cosmetic. Different stock, different grip, different barrel. I used to own an AR-7. Small.22lr survival rifle. It could be changed from a now illegal (in NY) assault rifle to a legal hunting rifle in about 30 seconds, by simply changing the stock. It would still fire exactly the same.

The intent of the new law is to make it more difficult for someone who intends to commit mass murder to be successful. The "two-feature" test never accomplished this. I'm not saying that the "one-feature" test is better, but let's stop pretending that the old law was effective.

The two-feature test accomplished nothing for precisely the same reasons the one-feature test will accomplish nothing.

Regardless, I expect this ban to be challenged and struck down in court. US v Miller established the core parameters of constitutional limitations on firearms, and that is that arms in common military use may not be restricted. In fact, I won't be surprised if the lawsuits pursued to fight down this ban (and a possible federal ban) don't end up establishing precedents which cause large portions of the NFA to be struck down as well.

Shotguns cannot have more than a 3 round magazine if used to hunt migratory birds; commonly, this is achieved by a wooden dowel inserted in the tubular magazine to limit it's capacity. The dowel can be removed for home defense, hunting deer, or skeet shooting. A friend purchased a handgun that he understood had been the personal 'off duty' firearm of a California State Trooper. The smallest capacity magazines it takes are 15 round; his had two magazines with wooden blocks, one with wadded up paper, and would not take more than 10 rounds without their removal. (He does not live in a state that limits magazines to 10 rounds, thus removed the blocks). If this applies in the New York law's case, I don't know.

Of the ~750 murders with firearms a year in NY, 5 were with rifles of any kind... So, banning "assault rifles" is nothing other than a feel good measure to make idiots feel like they accomplished something.

All of this is nothing more than a circle jerk. They don't care about preventing real violence. Like bureaucrats, they want to pretend they are solving the problem but are actually doing nothing.

How about the background check requirements? Do you think those accomplish anything, or not? The reason I ask is that in recent polling, a majority of gun owners support increased use of background checks to allow law-abiding and sane citizens to obtain guns more easily than criminals or insane people. It's obviously far from perfect, but there's a chance it would help reduce the body count.

Also, how about the smaller magazine requirements? Do those do anything to reduce the number of murders (the idea being reduce the number of shots fired before a shooter has to reload or switch weapons)?

How about the background check requirements? Do you think those accomplish anything, or not? The reason I ask is that in recent polling, a majority of gun owners support increased use of background checks to allow law-abiding and sane citizens to obtain guns more easily than criminals or insane people.

This position ignores the other effect of restrictions on the mentally ill... it discourages people from seeking help when they need it. This is already a huge problem in the United States, because of the stigma associated with mental illness, and more restrictions and especially mandatory reporting requirements -- because the info will be used for other purposes as well -- will exacerbate the problem. We need to provide greater access to treatment, not discourage people from seeking it.

We've already seen many cases of veterans avoiding treatment because the VA started reporting PTSD and other mental illnesses to the states for background check disqualification. So much so that the VA is reconsidering that policy, in spite of the military's large concerns about the potential for bad PR which could land on them if they "knew" a given soldier was dangerous and didn't act.

Also, how about the smaller magazine requirements? Do those do anything to reduce the number of murders (the idea being reduce the number of shots fired before a shooter has to reload or switch weapons)?

I see no statistical evidence that it will change anything. If you compare the outcomes of mass shootings performed by weapons with large vs small magazines there's no evidence that restricting magazine size will change the outcomes. Shooters with smaller magazines carry more of them (and reloading is a very fast operation, especially with a little practice), or carry more guns -- and changing guns takes virtually no time at all. In fact, the practice of grabbing another gun when your current gun is empty is often called a "New York reload".

So, no, as with most gun control legislation, this will inconvenience the law-abiding without significantly impacting mass shooting violence. And it will have no effect whatsoever on other gun crime, except to create a bunch of criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens who will refuse to give up their now-banned guns.

Why do we have to respond to acts already occurred in the state? Should we wait for a mass shooting with an assault rifle in New York before a ban on them?

I can understand going into the problems of the bill, and ways to fix the problems. But saying we shouldn't ban assault weapons because they haven't caused any deaths in the state as of yet isn't a good reason.

After all, no Sarin gas deaths in New York (to the best of my knowledge). Should that be legal for private citizens' use?

Well, Chicago had just over 500 murders last year (most with firearms). Yet Chicago has some of the toughest (I am unaware of any location with tougher) restrictions on gun ownership. It does not look to me like the difference is gun control laws.

Any one of these (let alone all of them together) would bring as much destruction, pain, and misery as a gun.With this, our government has shown it cares not about the actual cause of the destruction, only the device that caused it and the people/places that sell it.

Time to pressure them to ban the Walmart and arrest anyone who shops there!

You're right, anyone could build what they need to spread murder and mayhem.

Here's my counterargument: Why don't they then? I mean, we supposedly have a bunch of terrorists in our midst, we have drug dealers and pimps all trying to carve out territory, and we have just plain crazy people who would love to blow things up or dose everyone with mustard gas. Surely, some of them would be enterprising enough to build and use these weapons on a regular basis. But in fact, napalm attacks don't happen.

Some reasons I can think of:- It's hard to make those kinds of things just on the spur of the moment. Someone who's trying to make a shrapnel bomb has to carefully plan ahead, think things through, etc. By contrast, many shootings are where somebody's snapped and not really capable of doing that kind of planning.

- There's significant risk of screwing up when building such weapons and injuring / killing yourself. Most mass murderers aren't the sort of people that have learned how to properly handle explosives or chemical munitions. Even bad guys who have reason to know what they're doing have problems - there are cases of terrorists having their bomb blow up as they're driving to the Israeli border, for example.

- These weapons are all less portable and concealable than,say, a 9mm.

- Building these weapons takes considerably more brains than firing a gun. I grant you, the brains required are something along the lines of "Google it and follow the instructions", but there are a lot of people who can't handle that but can handle "point gun at target, squeeze trigger".

Bleach and ammonia = mustard gasSorry to be pedantic(not really, this is/.), but mustard gas is C4H8Cl2S. Where's the sulfur in bleach(NaClO) or Ammonia(NH4OH), hint there isn't any. Hell, you don't even have any carbons either, so no, you cannot make a "mustard" gas out of bleach and ammonia(you'll make some nasty chlorinated ammonia compounds, but not mustard). Still it is a bad idea to mix the two, so don't.

He is probably referring to Phosgene, not Mustard Gas. And he forgot to include some Comet cleanser in the mix. It adds oxidizers in the form of 1.2% sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione dihydrate (a derivative of cyanuric acid).

The BIG convenience of owning a gun and ammunition is that I can take my amphetami^D^D^D prescription meds, drink a shot of jack and then impulsively decide to unload said gun on anyone that is within range, immediately, with immediate effect and a very low risk of danger to self.

The BIG convenience of owning a gun and ammunition is that I can take my gun and ammunition and defend my home from you, immediately, with immediate effect, without the high risk of waiting 20 minutes for the police to arrive.

And for dropping someone jacked up on drugs, 7 rounds might not be enough to get the job done definitively.

Automatic weapons have been heavily restricted since 1934 and any machine gun manufactured after 1986 is illegal for private sale. No legally-owned machine guns have been used in crime in decades, as they're almost exclusively owned by wealthy collectors.

The AR-15, while it looks like the M16, is functionally identical to many other civilian-legal firearms in that it only fires one shot per pull of the trigger. It's not very commonly used in massacres of any type, as handguns are much more frequently used in such situations (handguns are also very commonly used for self-defense. Rifles of any kind, including AR-15s, were used in only 3.7% of gun-related homicides in 2011 and have been trending downwards for years.

It's a very common misconception that just because a gun (say the AR-15) looks like a machine gun (say the M16), then it is a machine gun. This is not true, though I don't fault you for being somewhat confused.

ObSlashdotCarAnalogy: A Honda Civic with a spoiler, a stripe, some racing stickers, and a stock engine may look like a race car, but it's functionally no different than a normal Civic or other common cars.

AR-15s are very commonly used for recreational, sport, and competitive shooting (including the National Matches [odcmp.com]). There's no real pressing or justifiable reason to ban or restrict them.

So when it is determined that a gun owner needs to be relieved of their firearm by law enforcement (because they are no longer defined as able to own it) is the state going to re-imburse the owner the value of the gun? Would the funds come from some fund from gun sales tax? Are they temporarily taking it with the intention of returning it when able? Where will they be safely stored?

The Government will confiscate the gun.The Government will not return the gun.The Government will not re-imburse the owner for the cost or value of the gun.From news reports, the gun is generally "lost".Just ask the gun-owners who have used their guns to defend themselves against criminals. The Government takes their guns "as evidence" and rarely, if ever, returns them. Even if the gun-owner sues, the Government declares the guns missing, destroyed, or needed for future use. I live in Tennessee, a carry permit state, and instructors of gun course routinely tell students that they should expect to lose their guns if ever confiscated and to act accordingly. There have been news stories and they all bear this recommendation out.A serving, military person was jailed when the state he was driving through to get to his next military, duty station. (The guns were safely and appropriately locked in the trunk of his car.) His guns were confiscated. When he was released, the Government officials would not return his guns. He sued and it took over a year to retrieve some of his guns. His guns were legal in the state of his previous duty station and in the state of his new duty station but were not in the state he was driving through.

As with Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Communist China, etc., once a gun is confiscated, it is never returned and the cost or value of the gun is never given. The real kicker is that confiscated guns have ended up in the hands of criminals (passing through the Government's "law enforcement") and used in the commission of crimes--imagine the chagrin of being notified that your gun was used to threaten, rob, destroy or kill after the Government took it from you.

Did he get a license or permit to transport his gun through the state? If not, he should have done his due diligence of using a licensed professional to transport is equipment.

It doesn't matter: Federal law specifically protects [wikipedia.org] the transport of firearms through areas where a gun is restricted so long as the gun is legal to own at the start and ending points of the journey and that the person transporting the guns keeps them unloaded and not immediately accessible (e.g. in a trunk or locked container) and does not make any extended stops in the area where the guns are restricted (stopping for food or gas is acceptable, though it's unclear if staying overnight at a hotel is acceptable or not).

I do not understand how any of these reduced clip laws, or assault rifle bans, get passed when it is supposed to be legal to operate and join a militia and to have the ability to fight your own government if they turn tyrannical enough.

Should be 'New York Passes Useless Gun Control Law', since nothing in the law will make any positive difference in crime rates, and will only impact legal gun holders. My prediction is that like Chicago, New York will continue down the path of passing more and more restrictive gun control laws, which make it easier for criminals to commit more crimes and serve only to continue to drive their violent crime rates even higher above the national average. Meanwhile, I live in a community of over 600,000 people in a state with very few gun control laws (Arizona) that has a violent crime rate almost have the national average. Where I can open carry into a bank (and have) and no one runs out in fear, the tellers smile, say high, and take my deposit as if nothing was wrong.

What you really need is an agenda that keeps to a minimum the number of people who wake up one morning and say - "Alright, this is it. Society has chewed me up, stepped on me, brought me to such rage that the only thing I can think of is blind rage. I want to die and take as many other people with me as I can". If someone gets to that point and is even mildly resourceful, he will find a way to get what he wants, guns or no guns.

The system will always fail some people. The question is - how deadly do you want the failures to be? Yes, weapons can always be found, but the time taken to construct and deploy a weapon is directly proportional to it not being used - the longer a person needs to be deadly, the more chance they will either cool off or be stopped.

How many of those were by firearm? How many were done by Police Officers?

A few murder stats from Norway, since you ask:Knife: Around 40%Guns: Around 20%Suffocation: Around 15%Blunt trauma: Around 15%Other: Around 10%

Murders by police officers isn't in the statistics, but if you count people shot and killed by the police then in the last decade the answer is 2, one in 2005 and one in 2006. Though I would argue that they should have been on the scene earlier and shot Breivik. Some other stats:

Around 85% of the victims had a relation to the murderer, around 45% friends, 25% intimate relations and 20% family. Around 50% affected by alcohol or drugs, around 50% unemployed, 25% working, 20% on benefits. Around 75% of the murders happens in either the perp's or victim's home, 5% other private place and 20% in public. Of causes the big ones are arguments with 45%, jealousy 20%, mental problems 20%. revenge 10%. Murder as a result of burglary/robbery etc. is very rare.

Not only that, but building a bomb isn't a completely simple affair. If you do it wrong one way, you blow yourself up. Do it wrong another way and your rampage will consist of tossing a bunch of duds. Do it wrong yet another way and the FBI catches wind of your plot and arrests you before you do anyone any harm. Compared to that, grabbing an assault weapon with a 100 round magazine and shooting folks up is easy and hard to detect before the shooting occurs.

You mean the guy whose family was murdered by Federal agents? Who was never convicted of a crime except for "FAILURE TO APPEAR"? That guy? The guy who didn't do anything wrong? That guy? The guy from Ruby Ridge?

While it's very true that mental health is a much more important issue to tackle, it's also exponentially more difficult. It takes far more time and money, neither of which we have much to spare. In the meantime, while it may not be the most efficient, why not put some common-sense restrictions in place with regards to weapons? Banning assault weapons might not be 100% effective, but at the same time, shouldn't we at least try to make it a little harder for mentally unstable people to get their hands on weapons designed specifically to create large numbers of people as quickly as possible?

Sure, there will be ways around it. There are always ways around it, and there are always alternatives. But the mere existence of these doesn't mean we shouldn't try. After all, if you look back at all these gun massacres, you'll find that in almost every case, the firearms were obtained completely legitimately, not from the black market. There is a point, of course, at which we have to say "Okay, we've done all we can reasonably do." Banning cars or propane tanks or whatnot would be ridiculous. Yes, they *could* be used for mass harm, but they generally aren't. Assault weapons are. It's only logical to put at least some restrictions on these things, since they have a history (not to mention purposeful design) of harming large numbers of people.

What percent of the time were the guns owned by the person using them in the shootings? I don't know the answer. Using my unscientific method of "memory", I believe most of the guns were acquired from relatives. Either they stole them from parents/uncle, or were given them by parents. I don't understand how having a 7 round magazine will change that. Will having a 7 round magazine help anything? Maybe. But if you had passed a law requiring gun owners to use approved gun storage containers, and you made people accessories to crimes if their guns were stolen and not properly stored, I think it would do more to solve the school shootings issue than any real legislation that has been brought up. I also know that you would have a lot more support from the gun owners of America.

In 2011 there were 323 murders committed with all types of rifles. In that same year, there were 6,220 committed with handguns. Yet there is an insane push to outlaw the firearm which is statistically insignificant in the grand scheme of crime.

Liberal idiots whip themselves into a frenzy because rifles look scary. They associate rifles with the military and wars. Rifles are an easy target for mass hysteria for the same reason that ignorant reporters fixate on them.

Meanwhile, pistols are clearly more popular and at the same time seen as a self-defense weapon. They seem less scary, more useful, and harder to demonize.

They are more useful for self defense because they are more portable and also easier to use for nefarious purposes for that same very reason.

And you're the reason why a calm, serious discussion is unable to take place in this country. I would say I'm coming from a relatively reasonable position of allowing firearms, but putting in place common sense restrictions. You immediately dismiss everything, and then proceed to make up an stance to argue against that is completely fictional. I'm really speechless as to where you even get some of your arguments, or how they at all factor in as a response to what I've said.

The purpose of the Second Amendment is not to grant every yokel the right to whatever firearm they please. The purpose is not to take up arms against your own government, but rather to take up arms for your government, as part of a militia, in order to defend your country from others. Within that scope, I am fully supportive of the right of individuals to bear arms. However, I do not support the right of anyone and everyone to go buy an assault rifle with no regulation whatsoever, as many gun enthusiasts are crying out for.

"Well regulated" refers to a militia working well. That's what that phrase means. It doesn't mean government regulation. I guess the founding fathers believed in the right to bear arms for Britain too, right? And furthermore, the SCOTUS disagrees with you. The second amendment does grant the people an individual right to bear arms. The second amendment is not about self protection, nor hunting, nor sporting, it's about retaining the ability to defend yourself and your rights from enemies both foreign, and domestic.

What you really need is an agenda that keeps to a minimum the number of people who wake up one morning and say - "Alright, this is it. Society has chewed me up, stepped on me, brought me to such rage that the only thing I can think of is blind rage. I want to die and take as many other people with me as I can". If someone gets to that point and is even mildly resourceful, he will find a way to get what he wants, guns or no guns.

The difference between guns and knives is that guns make the slaughter really much more easy. You know like point and click easy. It's because guns were invented after knives as a way to kill with more ease. Don't present these tools to crazy people as an option to solve their demented problems, regardless of if they are resourceful or not.
It is simply not true that mildly resourceful people get what they want regardless. The harder it is to acquire or do something, the more likely it is that it will not be done at all. It works like that for all other aspects of human endeavors, not sure why you think this differs from it.

What you really need is an agenda that keeps to a minimum the number of people who wake up one morning and say - "Alright, this is it. Society has chewed me up, stepped on me, brought me to such rage that the only thing I can think of is blind rage. I want to die and take as many other people with me as I can". If someone gets to that point and is even mildly resourceful, he will find a way to get what he wants, guns or no guns

No, what we need is an agenda that keeps to minimum someone who is hearing voices saying that Miss Jowinski's kindergarten class are really demons from Hell that are trying to kill him from grabbing the specially-designed murder device that Mom keeps under her bed and using it to rain, onto a bunch of kids who were busy coloring just a few seconds before, a hundred 6.8 Rem SPC rounds (armor-piercing) with a muzzle velocity of 800 meters per second and energy of 2390 joules, that Mom bought from Lucky Gunner Online, tearing their tiny bodies to shreds.

Except we can't even talk about that agenda without a certain segment of the population, at the behest of the industry that profits from said massacre, from pulling out their "don't tread on me with your cold dead hands" bumper stickers and marching about screaming that President Blackness is now Hitler times ten. With that, plus all the noise of gun manufacturers' cash registers ringing every time there's another massacre-of-the-month, it's kind of hard to have that talk, you know?

There's more than a decade of experience with "they will use something else for mayhem" not proving to be true. I agree most of the NY law is just plain dumb, but if any positive change is going to be made we have to throw out the dumb notions and misconceptions on both sides.

And OK, I'll break my own rule and say this, too. The thing is, something like the Sandy Hook tragedy is just that: a tragedy. Anyone with any human emotion at all is going to be heartsick. I certainly was.

But because of the way the media covers events like these, they get all of the attention. (Disclaimer: I WORK in the media. Radio.) But what doesn't get attention are the countless children who are slowly tortured, or sexually abused, or simply abducted and THEN tortured and abused.

We're fascinated with numbers. Sandy Hook was a horrible, horrible tragedy. I'm not taking away from it for a moment. But there was a little girl who was brutally raped and murdered (when they found her body, her PELVIS had been crushed by the force of the rape) back in NC, where I used to live. Most of you have never heard of her. She never even made the news, save for a brief mention in the local papers.

The truth is that we have a sick society, but we're spraying water on the flames instead of at the root of the problem.

No, we're not spraying water. The media is spraying gasoline, they know it, and love it, and WILLINGLY do it.

Don't give people their 15 minutes to 2 weeks+ of fame, and (at least from knowledge learned in other situations) a large motivation for doing 'ghastly' things stops. They do it because it gets peoples attention and focuses it on them, even if for a terrible reason.

Interesting that most of Europe has a higher violent crime rate than the US, by a factor of 2 or 3. Britain has the highest violent crime rate in the EU.

Burglars prefer to rob occupied houses in the evening in disarmed societies because alarms will be off, the occupants have wallets and purses, and can be scared into opening safes and pointing out where the valuables are.

Burglars in the US prefer to rob empty houses in daylight when there is less likelihood of finding an armed occupant.

The statistics are quite clear on that.

The US has somewhere around 2M defensive gun uses a year, most involving just racking the slide or showing the gun, not even firing it. That's a lot of death and injury prevented, and it sure outweighs the killings, 2/3 of which are criminals killing criminals anyway.

The US murder rate is NOT connected to easy availability of guns; the murder rate using other than guns is higher than elsewhere too.

But our overall violent crime rate is way down, and most murder victims are criminals.

You could look up these and more actual facts with google. But I suspect your mind is already made up; guns are scary and evil and MUST BE STOPPED, never mind that none of the proposed laws would have prevented any of the massacres in the last 50 years.

What would stop massacres much quicker is getting rid of the gun-free zones. Let teachers and staff carry if they already have the conceal carry permit. Heck, even throw in extra mandatory training if that idea scares you too much. A study of stranger massacres stopped by an outsider, not counting family murder-suicides, found that those stopped by a called policeman had an average death rate of 14. Those stopped by someone on the spot, whether a civilian or off-duty police, had an average death rate of 2.x.

What's that you say, that CCW hodlers are useless and even dangerous?

The Clackamas mall shooter, who stole his killing rifle, was stopped by a CCW holder who pointed his gun at him but refrained from shooting because there were bystanders in the background; the killer shot himself at that point. Contrast that with the limited Empire State Building shooter, where all the bystander injuries, 9 of them, were caused by police engaging in a wild west shootout on a crowded street.

Jared Loughner, who shot Gabby Giffords and killed 12 (?) people in Arizona, was slowed down when his 33 round magazine jammed. I think the Aurora movie theater killer was similar stopped by a jammed "high capacity" magazine.

The Sandy Hook iller fired 150 shots in 20 minues (20 minutes! When seconds count, the police are only TWENTY MINUTES away!). That's 8 shots a minute, every 8 seconds. It takes 2-3 seconds to swap magazines. He was changing magazines long before than ran out. Do you really think 10 round magazines would have made any difference?

What's that you say, don't confused you with facts?

Google, buddy, look up some real facts and find some REAL ways to stop these massacres.

One of the most interesting things about gun grabbers is that all they care about is 20 dead children at a school; they utterly ignore any affect they might have on the 500 people who died in Chacago last year.

The shooter never used body armor. The media just doesn't know anything about guns and thought his load bearing vest was body armor. Besides the point, body armor isn't magical, you still feel the hits. It also only covers your chest, there are plenty of other places someone fighting back could hit you and debilitate you.

There's also a pattern to these shootings. Typically as soon as armed resistance shows up, be that the police or a citizen with a carry permit, the shooters either give up or commit suicide.

Finally, I'd rather take my chances with "untrained civilians" than with NYPD.

Well, you said any other. How about Bahama. Before you deny it being a "first world" nation -- the PPP GDP per capita for 2011 was $30,958 [wikipedia.org]. The murder rate was 27.4 per 100,000 people vs 4.8 in the US. About 80% of all Bahamian murders involve guns.

Guns are tightly controlled, Getting a personal carry permit is very difficult.

Maybe we should try Switzerland, murder rate 0.7 per 100,00, Yet gun owership rate is 45.7 per 100 people vs 88 per 100 in the US. Gun ownership over 50% of the US, yet murder rate only about 14% of the US.

...And in the state of New York, you can still get yourself a nice Browning 1911-22 with walnut like the one I take plinking when I drive my blue Prius out to our little country place.

Your "Second Amendment Rights" to bear a gun or a Blue-Rhino gas can have not been infringed.

Don't know about your Second Amendment, but mine was written to protect me from a tyrannous government, i.e. it expects me to fight government (if such need should arise) and not go plinking or hunting with my weapons, i.e. it means I should have access to military grade weapons.

I really wish people would look up the word "Infringe" before making statements like this:

"Your "Second Amendment Rights" to bear a gun or a Blue-Rhino gas can have not been infringed.".

infringe/infrinj/
Verb
1. Actively break the terms of (a law, agreement, etc.): "infringe a copyright".
2. Act so as to limit or undermine (something); encroach on: "infringe on his privacy".

The usage in the constitution is the same as definition #2. To have our privacy "infringed" on does not necessarily mean that all privacy was taken away, it just means that some of it was taken away. So, likewise, any law that summarily prohibits all citizens from keeping and carrying (bearing) arms (weapons) of a certain "commonly used" type is a violation of the 2nd Amendment as that is "Infringement" by definition (the supreme court has previously allowed restrictions on "firearms not commonly used for self defense or militia purposes". Clearly, some of the firearms covered in this ban are very commonly used for self defense AND militia purposes, so I don't see how this law could be considered constitutional by any stretch of the imagination...especially the portion banning the possession of magazines over 7 rounds.

Your second amendment definition is not only unhinged, it's incorrect. It's unlawful to take arms against the government, and that's specifically written in the constitution (treason clause). The second amendment clearly states that the purpose of bearing arms is to participate in a local or state (possibly even federal) militia--i.e. FOR the government, not against it. These principles were tested early on during the Whiskey rebellion, and then more definitively during the Civil War. It's not legal to violently "rise up" against the government. It is not a "right" in the constitution. Sorry.

We have a much more effective system to overthrow the government. It's called voting. People like you are vivid examples why we need more gun control. There is no "right" to plan an armed insurrection, no matter what you believe. People who plan on or encourage violence against their fellow citizens are dangerous.

Actually, It makes most semi-automatic firearms illegal. Everything but revolvers and large caliber handguns. Those Ruger 10/22's that many kids grew up with are now assault rifles. My Browning Medalist target.22, is now an assault weapon and if I lived in NY, would be banned.

Nobody's TERKIN YER GERNSYet. This little gem. The law also requires that when a mental health professional determines a gun owner is likely to do harm, the risk must be reported and the gun removed by law enforcement."Is ripe for abuse, and I will enjoy seeing this bitch slapped down by the federal judiciary faster than you can say Zen Fascism. After all no bad law has ever been passed in the emotional furor after a tragedy.

Actually, they are. Detachable mag and one "military style" feature is now an evil "assault weapon". Owners have a brief period in which to sell them out of state. Seven round mags are simply not available, so just about all that's left are revolvers and old fashioned rifles.

There are millions of AR-15s owned by responsible people who will never use them to "cause mass mayhem". I own one and I use it for target shooting - I shoot paper targets at a proper range. Why do I need it? Well I guess I could use something else, but the AR-15 is widely available, easily customizable - there are lots of add-ons on the market that let me customize it to fit me just the way I like, it's cheap to shoot, and it's accurate. When I'm done with it for the day, it comes home with me and goes in the gun safe. A friend of mine uses his M14 [wikipedia.org] (which is, by the way, 100% legal after this law even though it has 10-round magazines and has a much higher muzzle energy) for the same purpose - but his cost to shoot is higher. Most of the people who I shoot with at the matches also have AR-15s for the same reasons.

Other people use their AR-15s for hunting or for self-defense in the home (I would argue that a shotgun loaded with bird shot is a much better option for home defense, but I digress). Because they look scary though, and because a few of them were used by troubled people to do evil things, now the vast majority of us - who will never use them irresponsibly - need to suffer.

I'm not going to risk making a flawed analogy, but I resent the fact that people who know nothing about the safe handling of firearms and who have obviously never been to a shooting range can tell those of us who do and have, our own business. I suspect (since we're on slashdot) that we can agree that rules by people who aren't "in the know" often have the tendency of being profoundly misguided.

I suspect this is a troll, but in case it isn't. The reason people are outraged at this, is the 7round restriction, not the new penalties, or background checks. No one makes 7 round magazines today, even for low capacity handguns. Various sports will have to change their rules, manufacturers will have to re-tool, and small business owners will go under as they are stuck with shelves of items they cannot legally sell, all so he can say he "did something". Bravo on the background checks, new penalties are

I dunno, the background check for ammunition purchasing would be enough to have me move out of New York. This means every time someone goes to the range to do some target shooting, they have to get a background check if they buy a box of ammo to shoot?

This will increase the number of calls into the check system by orders of magnitude. Today the usual NICS background check turnaround times vary by time of day and what else is going on (gun show weekend == one to four hour turnaround). And there's no mandate that the state return results in a timely manner, so access can be artificially manipulated by downstaffing the background check office or otherwise ensuring that the checks take an excessive amount of time. And there are stores which sell ammo but not firearms, so these will need to have access to the system.

Adding an extra hassle to each ammunition purchase pretty much guarantees that people are going to buy the maximum amount of ammunition allowable with each purchase, and also pool together purchases for groups of friends. Or just drive across state lines and buy their ammo in a "free state".

There are some things that *ARE* being taken. M1 Garand has an internal magazine that holds 8. When you load it you load a clip of 8 and press it into the magazine. Because you have to load the gun with a full clip you are loading too many bullets into the gun when you load the gun (even if you then immediately remove one bullet from the gun, you are a criminal for having put 8 into it at once. Legally using this gun is very questionable in NYS right now. Does the gun count as a relic? It's greater than 50 years old on design, but there have been a large portion of these guns rebuilt in the last decade with new wood, etc. Does this affect the relic status?

Another comment from ignorant anti-gun cultists. Many semi-automatic guns have magazines that support more than 7 rounds. I have a Ruger rifle that FROM THE FACTORY comes with 10 round magazines. I have NEVER seen a 7 round magazine for it. It's a hunting rifle for me, it's great for taking squirrels and rabbits that move around a lot. If I lived in NY, this gun would become useless. Yet someone could still easily buy and use 4 or more holsters and walk into a school with revolvers and shoot 10, 20, or more people if they wanted to. The law accomplished nothing except make a bunch of legal gun owners potential criminals. I also own a few 30 round magazines so when I go target shooting I don't have to reload as often. I can load them at home where it's easier and more comfortable. People who claim large magazines serve no purpose except killing people are just ignorant and don't know what they are talking about. People who claim a semi-automatic rifle can fire 6 shots a second are also ignorant. Three, maybe four tops. But then I can clear all 6 rounds out of my revolver in under 3 seconds, and reload in 3 more. so what difference does it make???

Last time I checked, the taking of property without due process is illegal. I doubt this will stand in it's present form. It takes a judge's order today to get a restraining order, it will be found that the police will have to get one to remove a gun from someone mentally ill, they can't just do it because some therapist says so. The government can't order me to sell something today that was legal yesterday. That's why pre-embargo Cuban cigars are still legal, along with many other grandfathered items in various laws.

Requiring back ground checks for private sales simply won't work. First, the FBI isn't setup to take them from private citizens. Second, why would I bother getting permission to sell a non-registered gun to a friend. Criminals already get guns from other criminals, I doubt if they will change their ways. Instead, thousands of people that now go to gun shows to sell guns they don't want anymore will simply stop doing it, reducing the supply and driving up the costs. If they want to make a difference, require anyone that sells more than 20 guns a year get a license. If there is a problem with private sales, it's not Bob next door selling to his buddies, it's the guy who is buying and selling to make a profit.

I doubt if much of this will survive any Supreme Court challenges. Cuomo and the NY legislature have just proven they are a bunch of ignorant people willing to pass ineffective laws just to look like they did something (and Obama is about to fall into that category). NY is going to lose some air travel business as people with guns avoid even passing through their airspace. I already do because of many cases where people just passing through had to spend a night and got booked on gun charges simply because the laws in NY are moronic and do nothing to prevent gun violence already.

I live in Mesa Arizona in a state that allows concealed carry without a license, Mesa remains below the national average in all violent crimes for cities of more than 500,000 people. Maybe if Cuomo and Bloomberg would work on figuring out why people in his state want to kill each other and focus on criminals, they might actually accomplish something of value.

Studies have proven time and again that increased penalties don't significantly reduce violence. This is what is wrong with your side in this argument. You are not interested in facts. You are only interested in feeling good. You are not interested in freedom, because you are insufficiently responsible for it. So are many gun owners, but is that something that just happened or a situation deliberately fostered by our government, who wants us dumb so that we can be more readily controlled? How will giving up your right to meaningful self-defense (7 rounds? really? in a state known for gang violence?) increase your safety when the police have been shown to commit crimes at the same rate as the general population?

None of these laws are going to reduce crime. I will bet you a dollar that gun crime will in fact increase in NY after these changes.

"It is my duty to ensure that only those people who _should_ be in possession of a handgun _are_ in possession of a handgun, in doing this I must judge their character.

With this duty in mind I have but two questions for anyone who comes asking such a licence; Would you like to own a gun? and, if I were to issue this licence, will you then take that licence and use it to procure said weapon?

If the applicant answers to both in the affirmative, then I deem that they are not really the sort of person who I feel should be in possession of a gun."

It's as unpopular a view to state in front of Americans and it is a popular one to state in front of non-gun-owning countries. The usual comeback is what would happen if someone breaks into my house with a weapon, don't I wish I had a gun then? Yes, but I wish harder that the other guy never was able to get hold of a gun in the first place, and that's made much easier by gun control for private hands.

In my entire life, I have never discharged a weapon. I have never held a weapon. I have never seen a real, live weapon except in an airport where the police are routinely armed. I have never seen a live weapon discharged in my entire life. I have lived and worked in some of the most horrible, manky, poor, deprived, crime-ridden areas of my country. I have had people try to walk into my house past me, and have had physical threats against my person.

And not once did I ever think "What this situation really needs is another gun".

I can't emphasise it enough, if you point a gun in my direction, accidentally or not, I will do anything up to and including killing you to stop that situation occurring or continuing. But owning a gun expressly for that purpose will only cause the same reaction from the other party.

You do realize that home invasions aren't always a single person. Groups of 2 or 3 are quite common. 7 rounds to deal with 3 intruders is getting pretty darned dicey.

Even trained law-enforcement when shooting typically have between a 17% and a 40% hit rate [nytimes.com] (that's not a hit to a vital area - just a hit at all), varying somewhat between what department you're looking at and what they're shooting at. Which means that even if you take the upper number of 40% a trained LEO is only likely to get 2.8 hits out of 7 shots.

Of course, the law-makers realize the foolishness of that and give the cops more bullets because they need them, but apparently the average citizen defending their home isn't worth as much.